Monday, July 13, 2009

A more resolute group you’ll never find than this Woolco store crew from 1966. Focused on maximizing your discount shopping experience, they don’t suffer fools gladly. The “captain of the ship”, the store manager, stands at the fore, clipboard in hand. His look-alike deputy (hair excepted), who I like to call “the enforcer”, stands to his left, ready to address any Woolco playbook infractions. And that guy seated in the second chair on the right, leaning forward and wearing glasses, needs to wipe the smile off of his face - this is serious. Of course, the very staging of the picture lends itself to all manner of cracks about “the women behind the men of Woolco” (this is 1966 we’re talking about), which I’ve wisely decided to steer clear of here.

The moral of the story? Have fun, shop at Woolco, enjoy the great deals – but watch your step.

13 comments:

Another great post. It makes me think of all the generations of store managers that worked in these great discount houses. Interesting that the 'seafoam green' smocks were similar in color to the ones we used back in the day at KMART!

I was just 7 when my Dad was one of the managers of the Las Vegas Woolco. In fact i cant say with 100% certainty but that appears to be my Dad standing on the far right of the three men standing on the store managers right side (wearing glasses) does anyone have any info about this picture

Mr. BlueLight - "Seafoam" green must have been the closest to an industry standard color for discount store uniforms, that and "Goldenrod". Thanks!

Kendra - You can almost hear the photographer - "I'm gonna have to take a couple more shots, the first ones aren't menacing enough". I have a few other large group photos of store crews from various chains, and the facial expressions are generally pleasant. I think it's pretty funny.

Long live the seafoam green uniforms! How do we start a campaign to bring it back? I'm tired of seeing the reds and khakis at Target (It's just sooooo Gap ad circa 1996!) and the drab blues at Walmart and I think they do red at Kmart too. So boring!

Kim - There were a handful of Woolcos in the Chicago area, and most of them weren't opened until the late 70's. Because of that, of course, they weren't open very long. The locations I'm aware of are Niles, Hanover Park, Villa Park, Homewood and Rolling Meadows (a former Topps store). I don't think they had anything in or near Joliet.

Jonah - I'm not sure how many of them even bothered to stick it out the twenty years. My guess is not all that many. "The end is near" for Woolco, at least as far as this series of posts goes.

About this site

Pleasant Family Shopping is dedicated to preserving the history of retail chain stores of the past - with an emphasis on supermarkets and discount stores. Your comments and anecdotes or photo submissions are welcome. Many of the store photos presented here are of unidentified locations. Any help in identifying them would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for stopping in!